Lessons in Loss
by wickedlfairy17
Summary: "You never know what you have till you've lost it."―Alyson Noel When you lose everything that made you, you, how do you go on? Does the absence of everything you had ever known destroy everything you are? What is left after that? Given the chance to be great, would you, could you take it? Jiraiya was reckless, she was an accident, and now it was all messed up. SI OC
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Heartache **

"**If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it."****  
****―****Emily Brontë**

There are so many ways to die, some peaceful…some not so much…but it is something intrinsically unavoidable. The bare truth of life was that everything that _lived_…_**died**_ and there was not much you could do about that. I was never a religious person…mostly because I couldn't find it in me to trust organized religion. There is something so horrible about being told that at the end of _you_ there would be a judge that would sentence you to either torment or salvation…it just didn't seem _right_. What was the point of living if all your life was only a test to get into some utopia at the end of it all?

It wasn't a pleasant thing to think about…death…not because it ends _**you**_…it is the **loss** of everything you hold dear that scares you. At least that was what used to scare me most about death…leaving everything and everyone you love behind. On the day, I died it had started out normally enough, wake up, get dressed, go to work, come home, make dinner and watch a movie snuggled into my love's side. I'm not sure how I died…one moment I was drifting off to sleep and the next _nothing_. What was horrible about the entire thing was being ripped from that blissful _nothing_ into _**cold**_, pain and awareness.

Everything felt _wrong_, I was small, I was in pain, it was cold; someone was holding me…a giant…their hands (whoever it was) spanned almost my entire back and as the hands rubbed water roughly washing my nude body I realized I couldn't **see**. Everything was blurry, like I was trying to see under water, and the shapes were blurred together in indistinct colors. Someone shoved their fingers down my throat and swirled them around like they were looking for something I tried to shout in protest. What came out was a weird gurgling, whine, cry and it startled me silent.

Why couldn't I talk? What was wrong with me? Where was I? Who were the people handling me so roughly? I was wrapped up in an itchy blanket and placed into another giant's arms…the squishy cushion of the placement made me assume it was a woman this time. I was exhausted, I was uncomfortable, and I _didn't understand_. The first few days passed and I was not any closer to comprehension than I was when I first...woke up? The people around me spoke another language…vaguely familiar but I was far from understanding what they were saying.

The question most pressing on my mind was…where was _he_…my love…my heart…my other half? I searched for him futilely, I tried to call out for him but all that came out from my throat was cries and incomprehensible gurgles. Something was _wrong_…and I wasn't where I was supposed to be. It took a month before my sight became clear enough for me to actually distinguish the things around me…it only left me more confused. Was I dreaming? I was sleeping before, just sleeping, and since the last thing I remembered was going to bed…maybe this was a dream.

In the condition I was in there was very little to do but lay there and think. My world now revolved around a woman, she was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that I used to envy and she was perhaps the most beautiful woman I had ever encountered off the silver screen. She fed me, bathed me, changed my diapers, dressed me and held me as she murmured incomprehensible things into my ear. I could barely move, I could hardly see, and in the condition I was in there was very little I do with myself besides trying to puzzle out my situation.

I was a baby, I knew that, but this didn't seem like a dream. Yes, it felt surreal but I think that was mostly me trying to cope with the sudden loss. However, it felt real because I felt hungry. I felt exhausted; I slept here and woke up the same way. This couldn't be a dream, so what was it? I wasn't in the practice of lying to myself but the only explanation I could come up with was so farfetched. I didn't remember dying, but the only thing I could think of was this might be something like reincarnation…or a coma induced dream world.

Either way there wasn't much I could do with myself because my body was floppy and too new to handle any moving around. So investigating was out of the question for now and with little else to occupy my time I tried to puzzle out what the hell that beautiful woman was saying. She repeated one thing enough that I assumed it was my name, "Natsumi." It was pretty but it felt all wrong. It wasn't the name I was used to and I thought it might be a while until I remember to respond to it.

Time passed by at a crawl when you had very little to do but think. Before all this happened I was something of a story teller, I loved to write and sometimes it seemed to be my only talent so while I lay there I told myself stories to pass the time. I made up a new background for that beautiful woman every day, she was a princess stolen in the night, she was a traveling artist selling her wares, and sometimes she was a geisha with a generous benefactor.

These stories saved my sanity because without any way to communicate or interact with the outside world I was trapped within the confines of my imagination. I knew that this beautiful woman was my mother, and not just because of ah…feeding time. That was one thing no one talks about how freaking mortifying it is to have to drink from your mother's ahh…while you consciously know what it is you're doing! No, I knew this woman was my mother because she was the only one I ever saw.

I heard voices from time to time, muffled as if coming from another room, but I only ever saw that beautiful woman. I wanted my old life back terribly, I wanted my love, I wanted to not be trapped here in this tiny helpless body but there wasn't much I could do about it so I gritted my figurative teeth to bare it. It took me a few months, but slowly I began to understand what my new mother was saying. It was a huge relief because it meant I could begin to puzzle out more from this life.

Where I was, who my mother was, and what my situation truly encompassed. My mother's name was Aiko. She liked to talk Aiko, about everything and some things I don't think she would have told me if she knew I could understand. It was from her little rambles as she talked to me in a gentle soothing voice I began to understand three very important things I wished I could thank her for. One, Aiko kept her pregnancy secret thus she saved me from death before I was ever born. Two, she paid for my upkeep on her knees and on her back. Three, she kept me hidden from everyone so that we could stay together.

Aiko was a whore, and certainly not by choice I later found out. When she had been fourteen her father had sold her to pay a family debt and she had accepted her fate with unimaginable grace. I admired her, because somehow she managed to avoid being bitter about her unhappy life. She had been pregnant six times before, and every instance the house mother had taken her to the doctor to have the babies cut out. This news made me incredibly sad because even though I knew Aiko wanted to cry at her admission, she kept a small smile firmly on her face for me.

When she got pregnant with me, Aiko did her very best to hide her baby bump as long as she could because she wanted me. She was still a good five years from buying her way out of her contract but Aiko couldn't take losing another one. I think she told me these things because she had no one else to talk to about it. I was familiar with this, my mother from before was a single mom with few friends and often talked to me in the same way. It was so blessedly familiar that it was comforting and I knew my new life might not be so different from my last.

I was a good baby, I hardly ever cried and when I did, I did so quietly. One of Aiko's greatest fears was that I would be discovered and taken away from her. So I stayed quiet for her and listened as she recounted her day. I wondered if Aiko knew who my father was, as unlikely as that was, because I was curious. Aiko was very popular, one of the most beautiful women in the red light district, so she had certain luxuries the others couldn't afford. For one, she had her own set of rooms that gave her privacy and allowed her to hide me.

It also meant that she could be selective with her clientele and that an hour of work often paid more than four hours of the other girls' time. This bred jealousy and some hatred for my mother. However, as gentle as she was with me I could tell from the way she spoke that my mom was one of those dangerous women. The kind of woman that knew how to use her body to the greatest effect and she exuded confidence from every pore of her body. She was intimidating, Aiko knew her own feminine power intimately and wasn't afraid to wield it.

She was everything I wished I could have been before, gorgeous, graceful, elegant, and unabashedly confident. I wanted to be like her. Somehow time passed and soon I was able to sit up on my own allowing me to investigate my small world. Aiko often left me on her futon surrounded by blankets and pillows so that if I rolled myself out of it I wouldn't be hurt. There was very little in her room I could grab, everything was too high, and I wouldn't have much luck until I was larger.

There was one thing on the floor though, a hand mirror was laid down just at the edge of the futon and if I could get there I might be able to see myself. I wanted to see what I looked like very much because I had no reference on this new body so I was still picturing my last one. I hoped I looked like Aiko; she had pretty blonde hair that fell down to the small of her back in gentle waves and pretty bluish eyes. She had these high cheek bones with a very full mouth and a cute little nose. The kind of face that looked prefect just waking up and she had a very slim a body.

She was curvy, but very tone. I wanted to see if I could find Aiko's features in my new face. It took me a while but I managed to scoot/crawl over to it. I leaned over eagerly but carefully placing my tiny hands on the glass as I looked into it eagerly. Once I did I froze, I felt like a robot asked a looping questions, the words 'does not compute' rang out inside my head. At first I thought I was albino, my hair was white and there was this redness around my eyes that seemed to indicate it. Then I took a breath and really looked.

What I found was strange, I was strange, fluffy white spikes floated around my face, my eyes were more green then blue and it looked like someone had put eye liner under them in red leaving little marks that reminded me of fangs for some odd reason. Absently I was ridiculously relieved that my eyebrows were black and not also white since it would make me look stranger than I was already. I sat there staring for a while, dimly noting that my face was all my mom but the exotic looking features made it look foreign. What was wrong with me? In the back of my mind something began nagging at me, I looked familiar, my features at least did and I couldn't quite remember why.

It was like having something right at the tip of your tongue that you couldn't quite grasp. I did the only thing I could, I stared, cute little baby nose, and a pouty mouth paired with eyes that looked a little big for my face gave me that puppy dog look. I blinked; I guess my new face wasn't so bad but being a baby still sucked. I was used to my grown womanly body that had already gone through the horrible time that some called puberty.

I sure as hell didn't want to go through that again but I didn't have much choice in the matter. I sighed looking at myself, flat baby chest, chubby hands, pudgy baby cheeks, all in all I was adorable and had I been the old me, I would have cuddled this baby into oblivion. A painful squeeze around my heart caught me by surprise and made tears well up in my eyes as I thought of him. We were going to get married, and we had already had that baby talk. I had always wanted to be a mom and now I was so far from that goal it was laughable.

For the sake of my sanity I pushed those painful thoughts aside and concentrated on the task at hand. I looked familiar, why? I stared at my white hair and the red marks around my eyes. My vision doubled and I pictured a boy, with spiky white hair and identical red marks suddenly. Jiraiya? I looked like Jiraiya from Naruto. I giggled, that was ridiculous because Naruto was just a half watched show I used to follow when I was a teen. I hadn't even watched the Shippuden series and only knew the bare facts about that.

Why would my mind think of that? Well, I had to admit that I did sort of resemble Jiraiya, but it wasn't like that guy actually existed…right? Suddenly I didn't want to look at myself anymore and scuttled my way back to the center of the futon. This was some dream; this couldn't be real, because things like this didn't happen! I plopped onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Ok, I took another deep breath and forced myself to calm down. If this was some crazy alternate dimension where the Naruto show I once watched was real then I could prove it right now.

If this was a place anywhere close to that it had to have one vital thing, Chakra, and if I was by some messed up twist in any way related to that toad man then I should have it too. So I laid back and took stock of my body. The beating of my heart, the ache of my muscles, the feel of my curls brushing like silk against my face and tried not to think of anything. I don't know how long I sat there mentally examining my body but eventually I became aware of something. Under the pulse of my heart there was something else…it felt like…I don't know how to describe it.

It was like trying to explain color to a blind person…there were no words in which you can use to articulate that feeling. It was almost like having another heart but not…it was just there. I was quite startled I hadn't noticed it earlier but I supposed it was like someone taking note of breathing. You might do that if you had a reason to notice taking a breath but until you have that reason it didn't really register to you. It was so natural to this body, but not to me.

Now that I noticed it, now that I was looking for it, I felt uncomfortable as I felt it move within me and as I became more aware of it within myself the more aware I was of it around me. It was like I had opened a door inside my mind that had been blocking a sense and now that I had, I was overwhelmed. It was like being put in the sunlight suddenly after being blindfolded, decidedly uncomfortable and slightly painful. Then it hit me that I _felt it_, Chakra, and if I felt it, my crazy, insane, impossible, improbable, frightening, exciting, confusing, wild idea might just be true.

I was in some place similar to a show I half watched as a teen. Huh, somehow confirming that made me both disbelieving and mystified. All my life, my first life that is, I used to imagine scenarios where something like this happened to me and gave me the opportunity to prove something. Whether that was to myself or someone else I wasn't too sure. Faced with the reality of it I was terrified. What could this possibly mean? Did my half remembered facts about that show Naruto have any standing? Could those events happen? If so where was I on that timeline?

Aiko didn't talk about life outside the whore house but I knew for certain I wasn't in any town called Konoha, we were in Yorokobi. What did that mean for me? I pushed all these thoughts aside, none of this matter, I was an infant there was very little I could do about any of this anyway. Right now I had to concentrate on what I could do, learn how to talk, walk, read, write, and maybe learn how to control this chakra thing inside me. Little steps, because if I thought about it all I would overwhelm myself.

Thankfully Aiko returned soon after that to feed me and I was able to lose myself to her chatter. Still in the back of my mind I thought over the small facts I remembered from the show, Obito, zombie armies, Biju, Jinchuriki, a war, an organization with black cloaks and red clouds. Where could I fit in with all that? How do you shoulder something like that? What could I change even if I wanted to? How would I survive it if I did get involved?

I wasn't anything special. I was a gentle person by nature and I didn't like hurting people at all. Plus I was a pansy with pain; did I have it in me to stand with people like Naruto? How could I? Should I get involved anyway, because they did a pretty good job without me mucking things up! What if I made things worse? That was terrifying and I tried to put this all out of my mind for now. Why would I need to take this all on anyways? What was the use of this information if none of it would happen anyway? How could I be sure people like Naruto even existed?

Sure I resembled Jiraiya a little but that didn't mean the man himself existed. The one good thing about this whole mess was that it gave me something to concentrate on because if I thought about him…about before…I don't think I could last long. I started trying the whole talking thing when I was about five months into this new life and it was slow going. There were about a hundred different muscles involved in speech, it is a skill you learn and definitely not a skill you are born able to do.

For one thing speaking involved not only a coordination of all those muscles but a certain control over your breathing to make the sounds attributed to speech. I remember a study I read once that studied 'feral children' who weren't exposed to any form of human speech from a very early age and were only ever able to use very limited speech later in life as a result. Learning to talk was so very important as an infant/toddler because it wasn't a skill you could pick up later on in life.

I tried my best but even though I was getting better at understanding the language spoken by my mother I was still thinking in English and it was totally different dialect. Every time I tried talking it was like I was trying to use the two languages at once and all that came out was jumbled up baby babble. It was frustrating. Aiko was excited about it though; cooing about her little genius and making me feel slightly stupid. It wasn't her fault, she thought I was a baby and like any mother she was prone to fits of silliness when faced with their baby's cuteness.

Even though I knew Aiko didn't mean anything by it, her baby talk felt like she was mocking me and it just made it so much worse! The only thing that made it better was that I was beginning to be able to crawl around now so I wasn't trapped so much anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Growing Pains **

"**Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell."****  
****―****Edna St. Vincent Millay**

Aiko tried her best to be a good mother and I couldn't fault her for leaving me alone so much. She had to make money for us to live and to do that she needed to be away from me. I was alone a lot, but I wasn't wasting my time alone either. I started to walk by the time I was nine months old and on unsteady feet I explored my small world that was my mother's private rooms. Mother played learning games with me whenever she had time between clients but I was far from understanding how to read again.

The characters were so drastically different from the alphabet I was used to that I was having trouble wrapping my mind around the concept but I was at least getting better at talking now. I could now say a few words and form a few broken sentences if I wanted to. What saved me from the boredom of being alone was playing around with my chakra. I literally had nothing else to do with my time since I wasn't interested in the toys my mother left me, I couldn't read, and had no one to entertain/teach me while she was away.

So I experimented with that thing inside me that I felt and knew I could one day wield to do fantastic things if I was so inclined. The first thing I tried doing was trying to figure out how to access and mould it to specific parts of my body. I was having more luck with my hands than my feet but I was slowly getting it. The most interesting thing I figured out how to do with it was using it to cushion my feet when I walked so no sound was made. That was dead useful since I had to be quiet so I wouldn't be discovered.

By the time I was two I was getting better at reading and had moved onto walking up the walls. This was an entertaining exercise since I was getting a little stir crazy being cooped up all the time. My mom had a Shinobi put up silencing seals on her walls that year so I didn't have to be so quiet all the time. That was a real relief and something my mom took advantage of right away. Aiko was actually an accomplished musician/singer and since she no longer feared discovery from the sounds I made she began teaching me. I was starting with a simple flute and it was a huge relief having something to entertain me besides my reading struggles and Chakra exercises.

She had started on teaching me how to write also since Aiko loved practicing calligraphy in her spare time. I wasn't having as much luck with that as I was with the simpler flute. Writing was harder than I remembered; my hands were clumsy and unyielding when I tried to write. It was almost as frustrating learning it as it had been learning to talk and that was saying something. I hadn't remembered how awkward it felt learning to write the first time around and not was even worse. At least in my pervious life I had pencils/pens but here I had to use a freaking brush with ink that I had to learn to make! It was messy, it was frustrating and it got everywhere!

That was also the year that Kenshin began working in the kitchens. Nakamura Kenshin was a simple looking young man with brown hair and eyes that always had a kind smile on his face. My mother talked about him a lot and I listened to her tales with a little sadness. My mother was only twenty five and she did not know what it was to be loved by a man. Kenshin was kind to my mother, they talked a lot and he shared a lot with her. Kenshin was Aiko first real friend and though I was happy for her a part of me was wary.

Kenshin was originally from Konoha; he had attended the Ninja academy but had failed his genin test. Afterwards he had taken to traveling around and had a whole laundry list of strange jobs he had gone through. He was a great cook and the women who worked at the whore house quite liked him. My mother told him things about herself too, how she came to be sold to the house, how much it had hurt her to lose those six previous pregnancies, and how lonely it was in her profession.

There was one thing she hadn't told him yet though, her greatest secret, me. I knew she wanted to but she was afraid to trust him with me. I didn't blame her, Aiko had been betrayed by some of the closest people to her heart and it was hard to recover from that. So I was very surprised when one morning my mother went out and came sneaking back into her rooms with Kenshin. I was hiding in the closet and was actually surprised to find I was scared at the prospect of meeting someone new.

It had only been two and a half years since I had awoken in this world…yet in all that time I had only ever interacted with Aiko. I remembered all the motions of introducing myself to someone new, I remembered I used to be good at meeting strangers and yet I hid frozen in reluctance. I was frightened of meeting someone new and as what often happened when I was scared I thought of him. I wanted him here, I wanted him to hold my hand and tell me that everything would be alright. It was painful to think about it and so I pushed him from my mind focusing on what was happening now.

"Natsumi-chan, come out, I want you to meet Kenshin," Aiko called out softly from the doorway. Kenshin peered curiously over her shoulder and I griped the door of the closet eyeing from the small crack I had left open. I took a deep breath, forced my hands to stop shaking and stepped out ever so slowly. When Kenshin saw me he gasped and his jaw dropped.

Aiko didn't seem to notice his reaction and was busy crouching down with her hand out to encourage me to come closer so I might take her hand in mine. I walked to her slowly and when I was close enough Aiko scooped me up spinning around as she did. I was straddling her hip and clutching her loose kimono front tightly. That's when she noticed Kenshin's stunned face and Aiko held me tighter tensing. "What's wrong Kenshin?" she said dangerously.

Kenshin shook himself and laughed nervously shifting his feet, "It's nothing Aiko-chan! What a cute daughter, but with a beautiful mom like you how could she not be?" he said. Aiko was still tense but she nodded smiling as she looked at me. "Yeah, Natsumi-chan it my precious little secret." She said eying him seriously, "Remember your promise Kenshin…you can't ever tell anyone." She said solemnly. Kenshin nodded his face set in a serious mask, "Don't worry Aiko-chan, I won't speak a word of this to anyone." He said.

Aiko nodded and put me down. I scurried over to the few books my mother had that I was slowly working through wanting a distraction. Kenshin sat down with my mom and looked around anxiously. "Um…that is…do you know who her father is?" he asked cautiously. Aiko looked at him questioningly and slowly nodded. She had my complete attention then, because even though I was used to not having a father (in this life or the last one) I was still curious.

"Yes, I know," Aiko said as she got up and took down a small chest from her closet taking out what must have been a photograph though I couldn't see it from where I was sitting. I got up and made my way to them unable to resist the curiosity. Aiko sat down and handed the photo Kenshin who choked as soon as he saw it. Curious enough to disregard the fact I barely met him I used my tiny hands to pull his unresisting arm down so I could see the picture.

I almost choked too before I caught myself, because there in the photo was the smiling cocky looking man that could only be Jiraiya with his arm thrown over my mother who was smiling slyly. Kenshin let me take the picture and my mom was too curious about his reactions to stop me from taking it with me. In the Photo Jiraiya had his leaf headband on, his wild white hair was sticking up everywhere and his cheeks were rosy. Aiko was wearing a thin robe in the picture that had slipped past her shoulders and barely covered up the important bits.

One of the many confusing things about this world was the curious inconsistency of technology and it was a puzzle I had yet to solve. Cameras were expensive; the process of developing film was a coveted knowledge and was usually way outside the price range of someone like my mother. Jiraiya was a high ranking Shinobi, he probably had access to a camera and knew how to develop film. This was probably the only picture my mother had ever taken in her life and I was a little sad that it was taken of her looking that way. My mother was so much more than that woman in this picture, she was kind, she was caring, she was so smart, and none of this was shown in this picture.

In this picture she had her work mask on, a sly seducer with little to no qualms about taking a man for all he was worth. Still, seeing a picture of me father for the first time I was struck on how similar we looked. It wasn't just the hair and the marking, we had the same smile and I saw my dimple peeking out subtle from his cheek. I wondered if Jiraiya knew I was born. From what I could remember of the series Jiraiya was supposed to be an information gathering genius and I wouldn't be surprised if he did know.

What brought the question of why he had never come to see me?

"Ah…Aiko-chan…do you know who that man was?" Kenshin said as he fiddled with his hands nervously.

Aiko blinked at him, "He was a shinobi that passes through here every couple of years but he hasn't been back since before Natsumi-chan was born. Why?" she asked him eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion.

I watched Kenshin curiously as his hands ran through handsigns but I felt no chakra from him. It was a nervous habit then and he wasn't about to cast a jutsu in my mom's rooms. "He is a shinobi…but he is more than that…Natsumi-chan's father is Jiraiya of the Sennin, the Toad Sage," Kenshin said eyes wide as if he almost couldn't believe what he was saying. "I used to hear about him being a womanizer back in Konoha but I thought that was all hearsay since he was such a legendary Shinobi…but I guess I was wrong." Kenshin said as he looked at me in stunned disbelief.

Aiko blinked, "Well, that could come in handy for Natsumi-chan's future." She said musingly.

Kenshin turned to her eagerly, "So has Natsumi-chan shown any extraordinary talent or genius yet? With a father like Jiraiya and a mother like you Aiko-chan there is no way Natsumi-chan could be normal!" He asked excitedly. I was getting a little frustrated by their need to talk about me as if I wasn't even there in the room with them. It was one of the things I hated most about being a child again, the almost total disregard for me presence during what I would term 'adult conversation'. As if I didn't understand what they were saying!

"Oh, Natsumi-chan is my little genius!" Aiko gushed eager to finally share what she regarded as my talent with someone. "She picked up talking so quick! Started on full sentences by the time she was a year old! She is just beginning to get a good grasp on reading as well! Plus in the six months since I put those silencing seals up Natsumi-chan has been practicing her flute every day and is on her way to becoming quite accomplished with it! And her little voice is getting better too; my little one is going to be a real singer one day!" Aiko said with a voice filled with pride.

"Not to mention she has been practicing that Shinobi thing, Chakra, she can do the most amazing things with it already!" Aiko said turning the attention on me suddenly, "Go on Natsumi-chan, show Kenshin what you can do!" she said making shooing gestures with her hands. I sat fiddling with the picture in my lap and feeling very embarrassed. I didn't want to be paraded around like a show animal but I knew if I didn't show Kenshin that my mother would be disappointed. There is nothing quite like shouldering a mother's disappointment so I sucked it up and walked to the wall.

Then I kept walking up the wall and then sat down on the ceiling. It was actually really fun sitting upside down on the ceiling to read or look at things. I figured out how to get my chakra to regulate my blood so it didn't all rush to my head and make me black out so I could stay up there for a few hours like that. I looked down at Kenshin and my mother. Aiko was clapping with a thousand watt smile and Kenshin was looking at me in open mouth surprise again.

Kenshin started to visit me whenever he could after that and gradually became used to his presence in my life. Kenshin had more chances to slip away during the day and it was because of his attention I was able to progress in a lot of things quicker. It was Kenshin's brilliant idea to start teaching me hand signs because he thought that as the daughter of a supposed legendary Shinobi I should at least know them. I was starved for mental stimulation in my small confined world so I took to learning them with unusual vigor.

It was only after a month of struggling to do even the simplest hand signs that I noticed that my dexterity had increased making it easier to write. It was easier but far from legible. Still, it was progress and the only thing I could think of was that it must have been all the hand sign practice I had been doing lately. I threw myself into learning them more enthusiastically after that since it allowed me to progess in all that basic stuff faster.

Kenshin also took to telling me stories about Konoha and teaching me some basic history. It was more interesting than I had initially thought it was going to be since I knew the basic before he had begun. However, Kenshin was a great story teller and the way he spoke about things was captivating. I am ashamed to admit that I was enjoying the attention from him since it was how I imagined a father might spend time with his daughter.

I had little experience with father figures in this life and the last so having someone to fill that void made me aware that the void was there. I thought as a mature woman trapped inside a toddler body I wouldn't miss such things but I guess there are some things you never really grow out of missing. Kenshin was a blessing, he taught me when my mother couldn't, he gave me companionship and I grew to love him like I had grown to love my mother.

Still, despite all the things I used to keep my mind occupied during the day at night the thoughts of him would come. I didn't have anything to distract me at night and he came to haunt my mind keeping me from sleep. I would wonder about how I could have died, if he missed me, if he had moved on and the pain of those thoughts nearly crushed me every time. Part of me wanted him to be happy, wanted him to have moved on and done all those things we had planned to do together. That part of me hoped he had found someone to comfort him and keep him steady.

Then the other part of me, that selfish part, hoped that he had been miserable and missed me as terribly as I missed him. That part wanted him to unrealistically be alone for the rest of his life because I couldn't stomach the thought of him with another. I loved him more than anyone ever could, he was mine but I knew I had no claim left over him. I was here, living another life, becoming another person and I had no right to want him to remain the same. My heart was in chaos as the part that loved him wanted to opposite things at once and it left me feeling empty.

There was a big hole in my heart where he used to be and I knew no one else could ever fill it. How could they? He was my love, he was my best friend, and we had such a great life laid out before us. It wasn't fair, that life had been stolen away from me and I wanted it back. But I knew it would never happen, could never happen. Something impossible had brought me here so I needed to see this through. I knew that dwelling on the 'what if's' and falling into depression over it would do me no good.

One of the things that he had loved about me was my strange ability to let go of my baggage. I hadn't thought about it before he had told me about it but I had a pretty rough life before. My life had not been the easiest to bare but it hadn't been the hardest either. I knew holding onto things that hurt you only drowned you in sorrow and made you miserable. When people hurt you, when bad things happened, you couldn't let it rule you because that just let that bad stuff win.

The greatest thing you could do for yourself was be happy no matter what, because being sad only made your life miserable. No one wants to be miserable, so you let it go and move on. It would be hard to let him go, it would probably take me years to let go of that hurt enough to move on but I would do it. I would do it because I wanted him to be happy. I had to allow myself to find happiness too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Shattering Worlds**

"**At the temple there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it."****  
****―****Arthur Golden**

It's amazing how quickly the years can fly by, I attributed it to the fact that I had very little way of telling time locked in my little world of interconnected rooms. My world only had two people in it, Kenshin and Aiko, my days were spent learning and filling up the boredom with music/reading. It was hard, staying inside this tiny world, and it got harder every year. In this body I had never felt the sun on my face or the grass under my feet. I had never run free like I had in another life, I was trapped, born into a prison that had been made by love but a prison nonetheless.

I was almost five years old now, and I had learned a lot in the last few years. I could write now, and decently enough. I could read easily now, Kenshin had smuggled me more material whenever he had the chance and I now had a rather large collection of stuff. Kenshin was my first true teacher, he taught me all he knew and guided me in a way my sparsely educated mother couldn't have. He taught me the 'academy three' and some basic forms on taijutsu.

While I was an artist of ninjutsu due to my ridiculous chakra control I was absolutely pants at taijutsu. The problem with living in this tiny world was there was very limited space in which I could exercise safely and this left me with almost no stamina as well as very little strength. However, I was ridiculous speedy when it came to forming hand signs now since I practiced every moment I could on them it wasn't so surprising. Kenshin thought I was even as fast as an experienced genin and I took that as very high praise indeed.

Mother had almost enough hidden away that soon she would buy her contract back and we would be free to live our lives outside of this tiny world. We were so close to freedom I could almost touch it. Then one day I found out just how delicate my world was and how easily it could fall apart. My life had been a house of cards, every move had to be gently done or the whole thing would tumble down. All it had taken was ten minutes, ten minutes for me to ruin everything and lose everything all over again.

That day had started out like every other day before it except it was different and we just hadn't known it yet. Kenshin left early that morning to go shopping in a neighboring village for some teaching supplies for me. I was going to be five within the week and he had promised to start teaching me how to throw those cool kunai and shuriken. He was gone and the house opened business that afternoon as usual. My mother had been nervous, she hadn't wanted to go to work without Kenshin there for body guard duty but the house mother pushed her into it.

I was reading upside down on the ceiling waiting for my mom to take her break and smuggle me dinner. I should have known something was wrong when I heard my mother talking to someone outside our rooms but I hadn't been paying attention. I just thought that Kenshin must have come back early and we were going to eat together. Then my mother opened the door without tapping her fingers on the doorjab, I had no warning and sat frozen on the ceiling as she came in with a stranger tailing behind her.

I didn't understand at first, mom never brought clients back into her rooms and my confusion froze me into my place. Then I began noticing things, the glazed look in my mother's eyes, the chakra flaring in the obviously trained stranger as the man followed my mother with the look of concentration on his face. The man was trained, but he was not a shinobi, a drop out from some village maybe. All I knew was that my mother was going to be raped, in her own rooms, in front of me, unless I stopped him.

There was no conscious decision, no calculating of the consequences, I just reacted and I destroyed my life without a second thought. I dropped the rather large book I was reading on the stranger's head and tackled him a millisecond after. I was pulling at his hair, pocking his eyes, tearing at everything I could put my hands on and he struggled for a good minute before he threw me like a rag doll across the room. It had broken the genjutsu though; the noise of my mother screaming traveled through the carelessly left open door and brought down hell on us.

The guy was tackled by security and dragged out. The damage was done though; I was in no condition to move to hide before there was a mob of people coming to see the ruckus. Aiko was frantic hovering over me, afraid to touch me but desperate to see if I was okay. I laid against the wall in shock, what had I done? Over my mother's shoulder I saw the ice cold look in the House mother's eye as she stared down at me with a calculating glint in her eye. I had ruined everything, I destroyed my little world within a few minutes and there was no putting the pieces back together now that it was broken.

My mother didn't have enough to buy her contract yet, she was still the house's property and by extension that meant I was owned by them as well. The House mother made everyone leave and when it was just the three of us in the room her face transformed into a snarling demon. My mother was pale and shaking, holding my hand limply with her face a mask of disbelief as the House mother laid claim over me. I was to be sold to a geisha house in another town to make up for any lost earnings from the damage caused by tonight. We had one night left to say our goodbyes and then we would never see each other again.

Aiko had been too shocked to speak, and when the House mother left she picked me up crushing me in a terrible desperate hug that my body protested. I didn't say a word, this was my fault, and I took the pain as punishment. My mother got very quiet, very still, soon after and sat me down in front of her tracing my every feature with shaking hands. Then she nodded to herself and left me alone. I was too numb to cry; too shocked by her sudden leaving to do anything but sit where she had left me.

It was some hours later before she returned with a plump looking man with oily hair and a sneaky attitude. She didn't say a word as she directed the man to her side room and then began gathering things up. I watched as she put my meager collection of clothes, sealed my reading collection in a very expensive sealing scroll some shinobi had given her and packed a strange assortment of other things in a little pack as well. I lost track of all the items she sealed in the scroll or carefully placed into the little back pack. Then she kissed me on the cheek and went to join the man in her bedroom.

I sat there unable to block the sound of him taking something precious from my mom and then an hour or so later they came out again. My mother slipped a few last things into the pack and then took me aside. The oily fat man waited by the door, twitching nervously and looking around with shifty eyes. I didn't know what was going on, it was like my mind had shut down and nothing made sense to me anymore. Aiko held out the pack and made sure my hands were firmly around the strap before she let go.

Then she looked me straight in the eyes, looking more serious than I had ever seen her before and said, "Natsumi, I need you to listen to me very carefully right now, okay?" She waited for me to nod before she continued on, "The man behind me is going to smuggle you out of town and you need to travel with him for exactly three days got it? As soon as you can, you need to get away from him and head to Konoha. He is not to be trusted, so try to slip away without letting anyone see. I put a map in your pack, along with a compass, you'll have to get there on your own."

Aiko gripped my shoulders, "I know this is a lot Natsumi, but I know you're my clever girl. I know you can do this. I can't go with you now because the house would hire ninja to bring me back, I'm too valuable. You need to be go first, I'll meet up when I can," her voice hitched, "but if I can't make it to you Natsumi, I want you to know I love you and won't ever forget you." She cupped my face, "I packed that picture of your father, if you tell the Konoha ninja who your father is they will take care of you and protect you from this life."

She kissed my face, and whispered in my ear, "I put half of my savings in a scroll at the bottom of your pack, just in case, use it wisely and don't let anyone know you have it!" Then she pulled back cupping my cheeks again and looked me in the eye with a look that shot right through me, "Live well Natsumi, let love in, don't lose your honor and always know that I love you with all my heart. Be strong, make friends, and know that I am so very proud of you. No matter what happens, or what you do, I am proud of you Natsumi. Be safe, be smart, practice your music and have a big family when you grow up."

Her arms circled around me and pulled me tightly to her chest hugging me fiercely. I felt a burning in my eyes, my throat tightened stealing my voice and my heart squeezed painfully, the overwhelming feeling of loss left me shaking. "I left a few things in your pack, surprises that I don't want you to look at until you're safe in Konoha. I love you Natsumi, do your best, and never give up." She whispered into my ear before pulling back and leading me over to the awaiting smuggler. I was numb, I followed the man slowly and softly closed the door behind me as we left. Before it was all the way closed, just a sliver was left, I heard my strong beautiful mother choke back a sob and somehow that made it all worse.

I was so shocked by the suddenness of my change of circumstance that I barely noted leaving the whore house for the first time in my life. I couldn't take in the feel of the fresh air or see the twinkling night sky with any comprehension. I sat huddled in the back of the man's carriage folded into the smallest ball I could and was hidden under some silk cloth. My pack was a heavy weight on my back and I held onto the straps with a white knuckled grip.

Absently I took in the clothes I was wearing, my black shorts, my forest green t-shirt, my little black slippers that reminded me of ballerina slippers and shivered in the night air. The silk cloth did little to warm me, I wasn't dressed for this harsh outside world and I wondered how I would survive here without my mother. I had never been outside those rooms in all the years I had been alive in this life, I had never see the outside and I felt like a stranger in a foreign world for the first time since waking here.

Somehow I must have fallen asleep because I woke to the harsh light of day. My eyes watered, I could barely see because my eyes were so unused to the brightness of the sun. It took me an hour to see normally and by then I could feel the bite of the sun against my skin. I was pale from a life inside, I was burning already and I didn't have anything to protect my skin with. In my old life I would have put on sunblock but I didn't even know if that existed here. Desperation drove me to push my chakra to coat my skin, hoping that it would help some and it did.

However, while I had a decent amount of chakra I could not keep that coating all day without fainting from exhaustion and by the end of the day I was pink with sun burns. The man had given me a canteen that morning and an small rice ball that night after he filled it with water again. We traveled, I sipped sparingly from my canteen, and at night I ate. This went on for three days and on the third night I waited in anxiety for him to fall to sleep. He was snoring loudly for a good hour before I dared to move.

I filled up my canteen, grabbed a full spare and some wrapped rice balls before I checked his map. He marked his progress every night so I got my baring easily enough using the light of his campfire and then I snuck away. The moon was reasonably full and gave me just enough light that I could walk without falling, well mostly. The slippers I was wearing did little to protect my feet from the sticks, rocks, ground as they were made for inside and not trekking through a forest.

What was I doing? I forced myself to walk; I needed to get distance between me and that man. My mother hadn't trusted him and so I certainly wouldn't. I didn't want to be found so easily and so I kept walking. Every so often I had to stop, checking my crude map and my compass. My muscles burned, screamed at me to stop, to rest, but I refuse to stop. My body wasn't used to this much activity, I hadn't been able to exercise much in my small world and now I was beginning to realize how unfit I was from that. I stumbled on, exhausted, my feet screamed, my body ached, and all I wanted was to drop where I was…I forced myself to keep going.

I didn't stop until the sun blushed over the horizon and then I climbed up a tree. Walking on the side of a tree was different and more difficult than walking up a smooth wall, somehow I managed. I tucked myself high up in the thickest branches and the darkest spot I could find falling sleep as soon as I secured myself to the trunk with a bit of rope I had taken from the man.

Hunger and thirst woke me up that afternoon. I opened my pack getting a rice ball and took small sips from one of the canteens. I took out my map, Yorokobi was on the border of the border between the River country and Ame just barely within the Fire Country. It took three weeks to travel to Konoha using horse and carriage. I had only ridden with the man for three days, so I estimated that it would take me well over a month to reach there if I walked as long as I could every chance I got.

There should be a small river that I would cross within two days but I couldn't count on it since I wasn't sure how far I walked. I would have to be very careful with my rations and try to find things to eat in the mean time. My body screamed at me as I stood up and walked down the tree. All I wanted was to rest, but I knew if I did that there was a good chance I would die before I go to Konoha. I had to go on, I had to get there, and hope that my mom would meet me there soon after.

By the time the sun started to set my flimsy slippers had given up the ghost and were utterly useless as the soles had been shorn off from the harsh ground. I took off the remaining tatters and put them in my pack just in case. I used to watch survival shows all the time in my old life with my hubby and I knew even seeming useless things could come in handy somehow. My feet were raw, every step felt like I was stepping on shatter glass and I marveled at their fragility. When I was this age the last go around I had run around bare foot for days without a care in a world and now it was like I was skinning my feet with every step.

Logically I knew it was because I had no calluses in this new body but that didn't make it any easier walking. It was eerie walking at night, every noise sounded like some predator stalking me in the dark waiting for me to stop to pounce. I shivered from a combination of cold and fright. All the clothes I had were unsuited for the cold and only the activity of walking kept me warm. Somehow I managed to make it to dawn again and I found another tree to sleep in soon after.

This one wasn't as densely grown as the last one and I woke up blistered red from sun burns with cracked bleeding lips. I checked my map, ate a rice ball and took some sips from my canteen. Then somehow I managed to force myself to get down from this tree even though my feet left little bloody foot prints as I made my way down. The bottom of my feet had scabbed over sometime while I was sleeping and I had managed to rip open them on the way down.

I sat heavily on the base of the tree and opened my pack looking for something to wrap them with to stop the bleeding. I might not have been out in this world at all but I knew enough to know leaving a blood trail wasn't a smart move. I managed to mutilate one of my spare shirts into strips to bandage my feet and nearly hit myself from my stupidity. Why hadn't I done this sooner? Answer, too freaking exhausted to think straight and I was moving on pure bull headed stupid stubbornness by this point so thinking wasn't coming easy for me right now.

The walk that afternoon was perhaps the longest one I had in both my lives and I didn't even make it very far it seemed. I found a stick sturdy enough that I could lean into it and while it helped me walk it also bit into my hands thanks to its rough bark. This journey was unpleasant; I was thirsty, hungry, exhausted beyond anything I had ever experienced and in a lot of pain. Every moment I expected to drop like a stone onto the ground and have my body give out.

It was a little surprising that somehow I managed to keep walking and found another tree to sleep in as dawn began to creep up. I settled into a routine, wake up, take stock, eat, drink, force myself to walk and then find a tree to sleep in at dawn. This routine lasted for five days after leaving that man behind and on the sixth day I ran out of rice balls. That was a problem since I had no clue on what I could eat out here in the world without poisoning myself and I very much doubted I would be able to force myself to kill something to eat. It was not like I could even catch anything to kill anyways.

My water was running low too. I had finished one canteen already and that was only from taking small sips whenever I absolutely needed a drink. I hadn't found that small river that was shown on the map, I had no idea where I was since I was pretty sure I had managed to get myself lost even with a map and I was miles from anyone. Needless to say my situation was a little bleak and for the first time I began to wonder if I would be able to make it to Konoha at all. Would I die again? Out here all alone?


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Fighting for life**

"**Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That's part of what it means to be alive."****  
****―****Haruki Murakami**

There was little options left to me, I could sit there in the middle of the forest and lay down to die or I could keep going. Call me foolish but I made myself get up to keep moving on. There was still a faint hope I would run across someone, or that I would find my salvation somehow. So I kept moving, ignoring my burnt blistering skin, my aching scabbed feet, my raw hands, and my protesting muscles as I walked on. It wasn't anything more than good old self preservation driving me now, that sickly acid feeling that pushed you to live even as you knew you were going to die.

I walked on. Within four days I ran out of water, and nine days into my journey I was sure I wouldn't last much longer. My stomach had moved on from growling and grumbling to shrinking painfully. As the tenth day rolled in my tongue had swelled up in my mouth and it felt like heavy sandpaper. I couldn't even muster up enough to wet my mouth with saliva anymore. I was drying out and getting very close to dangerous dehydration.

The sun beat down on me, I was barely moving now, stumbling along blindly as I leant heavily on my walking stick and tried not to think about how horrible it was going to be to die this way. My stick hit an unturned root; I fell hard and didn't even have the strength to soften the blow. I laid there face down, face aching, body heavy with exhaustion and knew I wouldn't be able to get up from this. My head turned weakly to the side and I looked out at the endless forest with little hope. Was this my end? Was this how I would die again? How could this happen? After everything my life was going to end with barely a whimper and I didn't have the strength to save myself.

I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up I saw something familiar. "I must be dreaming," I said weakly voice cracking from dryness. He chuckled beside me, his cheek was pressed to the ground and his hand reached out to slide through my hair. "Why do you think that baby?" he asked in that easy way I remembered. "Because you're here." I said simply and smiled weakly at him. My eyes drank in his face, my heart swelled up painfully as I took him in and if I had had it in me to cry I would have.

"Why are you just laying there, baby? You gotta get up!" He said ignoring my words.

"I can't, I don't have anything left darling, I can't move," I said weakly.

"Don't give me that, where is that stubborn girl I know? The one always racing off to do something recklessly out of her depth but managing to anyway? Huh?" he said smiling that heart breaking crooked smile at me.

"I don't want to get up, I want to stay here with you, and I'm so tired baby. Can't I just stay here next to you? I've been so lonely without you, I miss your laugh, I miss your touch, I miss cuddling with you, can't I just let go?" I asked feebly trying to reach out to him. My arm wasn't long enough anymore.

He smiled at me sadly, "You have to get up baby, I want you to get up and live. I'm selfish like that. So get up, get moving, you can do this! Remember that story I told you about the day I broke my neck?" he asked suddenly.

I chuckled weakly, "How could I forget, superman?" I teased, "You crashed your dirt bike and broke your neck, but you got right up holding your head in your hands like it was nothing. Then you walked five miles to the hospital, they strapped you a bed, put you into surgery and told you when you woke up that it was very likely you would never walk again." I said breezing through his usual embellishments to the story he smiled cockily at me.

"And what did I do?" He asked.

"You walked out of there the next day," I said smiling.

"That's right, and do you know how I did that?" he asked as his hand ghosted over my face.

"How?" I breathed.

"I didn't let anyone, even myself, tell me I couldn't do it. I refused to let them win, to let the world take something so precious from me. I was stubborn, bull headed and too stupid to give in. Now you need to get up baby, because I won't let you give up like this and you can't go." He said firmly.

"What if I can't?" I asked weakly.

"Don't ever say that again," he said firmly, "you can and you will."

My eyes burned with tears I could not shed since my body was so dry. I choked back a sob, "I don't want you to go, I miss you every moment darling, I can't do this without you here, and I can't let you go." I cried.

"Don't be stupid baby, I'm not going anywhere, I'll always be with you because we're soul mates, remember? You can't get rid of me so easily I've been here all along," he said gently. "Now get up lazy," he teased.

I nodded reaching for my stick, it took me a long time to get up and I was gasping for air by the time I stood. I slumped into the stick and forced myself to move forward. "That's my girl," I heard him say but as I turned around he was already gone. I hobbled along as the sun set and the night crept in. It was dark, the kind of dark that the night of a new moon bring, pitch black and seemingly endless. I couldn't see the hand in front of my face; I stumbled along blindly and stupidly kept walking.

The issue was that I knew that if I stopped, for even a moment, I would not be able to get up again even with some serious motivation from my lost lover. So, I kept going in the dark hoping for salvation. It seemed inevitable that I would trip again but this time I fell a lot further. I must have hit the precipice of a hill because when I fell I rolled and kept falling. I tumbled in a free fall, rocks hit into me, branches, roots, god knows what cut open my skin. Then I was free falling through the air for about two seconds before my pack caught on something wrenching my arms painfully as it was ripped from my back.

I landed with a splash, barely coherent, I was drowning under freezing cold water and I clawed desperately at it trying to swim up for air. The sudden shock of landing in the water I had so urgently needed had me gasping in shock filling my mouth with water and robbing my breath. I gulped down water as I struggled to the surface and managed to break through sucking in air frantically as I did. The current was gentle enough that I somehow managed to doggy paddle my way to the bank.

The bank of the river was muddy and I kept slipping back into the water as I tried to find something to pull myself out with. Eventually, covered from head to toe in thick slimy mud I collapsed upon the bank utterly spent. However, somehow I managed to muster the energy to roll onto my stomach and crawl to where I thought I had lost my pack. It took me a long time, groping blindly in the dark at the roots along the side wall of the bank before I felt the brush of cloth that signaled my success. I mustered just enough left in me to surge up dragging my pack from the greedy jaws of the roots and fell back into the muddy soup that was the riverside.

I dragged myself to the furthest I could go to get away from the river and then I sank down into the mud from utter and complete exhaustion. The pack was firmly in my arms was the only comfort I could give myself before I slipped away into unconsciousness. I could only hope some animal wouldn't make a meal of me during my slumber and that I would wake up still in this body in the morning. I couldn't take going through this again if I died during my sleep this time too.

**~Sakumo~**

"**Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."****  
****―****Winston Churchill**

Sakumo was unused to failure, not that he as an arrogant over confidence but just as a statement of the facts. He was skilled, and he had worked very hard to get to a place where he was skilled enough that his mission failure rate was less than two percent. The problem was that since he rarely failed, he had farther to fall when he did and that was what he was facing now. Their mission had been vital, recover the stolen documents from an ame-nin before he could reach Amegakure and silence him before the man could reach the Ame Daimyo. Just when they were within moments of reaching their target they were ambushed and his teammates had been captured leaving him to complete the mission alone.

However, in completing the mission it would doom his two teammates to a slow death by torture and Sakumo had to make a choice. Complete the mission, thus leaving his teammates to die or fail the mission objective to rescue his teammates from their captures. In the end there wasn't any other thing he would have done differently, these were his comrades, his partners, people who he had grown strong with and knew their families. Sakumo made the choice to go back for them and let the ame-nin escape.

He had managed to save his teammates from death but in doing so he had doomed their village to war once more. It was a spectacular failure and one he would have to shoulder the consequences for. There had been a tense peace between the villages for only the past four years, there had been a few skirmishes and some mounting tensions yet war had yet to be declared. Their failure, his failure, would lead to another Shinobi war and Sakumo wondered if they could shelter the storm of it once more.

The people were wary of fighting, and now the trigger of another war rested on his shoulder. His teammates could not meet his eyes, they were of two mind on this their instinctive relief to have been saved and their anger at being a part of the group to bring war down upon them. Sakumo was no fool, he knew that everyone would look to him for answers, and when he had none to give hate, resentment, anger would fester within them until it had to seek someone out to shoulder it. He would be a target now, within his own home, and what he couldn't handle, what he couldn't stomach, was that he had brought this on his little son Kakashi.

They traveled in silence, the unspoken agreement to not stop until they were within Konoha's walls hung heavy between them. They had to warn the rest, war was coming and there was nothing they could do to stop this wave form crashing down upon them. Sakumo was taking point, nothing escaping his keen eyes as he made sure no one was waiting in the sidelines to ambush them. He had already failed to protect his teammates once, he would not do so again and so he was on high alert. Even now.

It was because of this that he spotted the child, collapsed and half buried in the mud along a river bank. He landed to inspect the child's area, it wasn't above their enemies to use a child's body as bait for some trap and Sakumo didn't want to risk it. He was very thorough and cautious in his approach. His teammates where impatient but better to confront a trap, then to be taken for surprise from behind. It was only after he had the body cleared that he approached the small body and even then it was with extreme caution.

He picked the child up, it weighed nothing in his arms and brushed some mud from the child's face. Sakumo immediately winched, the child's skin was as red as a lobster and slightly swollen from blisters. It made distinguishing any features nearly impossible along with the mud in the hair Sakumo knew he wouldn't be able to pick up any identifiable markers until they got the kid cleaned up. What he could see was that this child was painfully thin, very obviously alone and had been for a while now. The kid was smaller than his little Kakashi and it tugged at his heart to think of such a little kid to be left for dead.

He was a failure anyway, what was adding one more mistake to his tally. Sakumo tucked the little thing into the crook of his arm, put the small pack the kid had a death grip on into his own pack and signaled his teammates to move out. They were looking at the child with wary distrust but didn't say a word to stop him. It seemed his saving their lives had earned him some leeway into allowing him to get away with this without a single protest.

The poor little tyke was obviously half starved and very dehydrated. The kid wouldn't have lasted a day longer on its own and Sakumo counted the little thing as being very fortunate to have been found by him. Perhaps Sakumo could work his way into redeeming himself from this whole he had dug underneath him. Then again, it was not like he was bringing anyone special home, well unless one of the Daimyo had lost a child since they had left the village.

Looking down at the child in his arms Sakumo tried to distinguish the gender only to come up with a blank. The mud, the sunburns, the clothes, it made the child very gender neutral and gave him no clues to the kid's identity. The kid's pack probably had something but taking the time to stop to check wasn't a priority and couldn't be done on the move effectively. Still, saving the kid made him feel a little better about failing so spectacularly.

'


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5- Groundbreaking Truths **

"**Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existence."****  
****―****Sarah Dessen**

**~Sakumo~**

It took them two days to make it back to Konoha going at top speed with little to no breaks and in that time the child had yet to wake. It made Sakumo nervous because as a father seeing a child hurting like this didn't sit well with him. It was a huge relief to see the walls of their village and they sped up as soon as they saw those gates. Sakumo detoured to the hospital to drop his little cargo off. Luckily there was a long established protocol for these sorts of things and it barely held him up.

He simply dropped the kid off at the front desk, stated that the child was red tagged and left forgetting about the pack in his own. He made it to the Hokage's office just as his teammates did for the debriefing. That was probably the longest two hours of his entire career; the heavy disappointment from the Sandaime was like shouldering the disappointment of his father. The worst of it was that while the man understood his actions and deeply sympathized with his choice he could not condone it.

In the Shinobi way of life Sacrifice was common and often looked upon as a last act of honor. His teammates had been resigned to their fates, had been willing to make that sacrifice for the good of their village and he had acted selfishly on saving them. His actions would rob them of the peace they so desperately needed and now they were facing another war. A war that Konoha's already extended resources was not ready to handle. They were barely beginning to recover from the Second Shinobi War and just didn't have the manpower to begin hitting once more.

It was a bleak outlook, graduation age would have to be advanced to younger children to fill up the ranks and these kids weren't ready to face a war. His little Kakashi, his child prodigy, was going to graduate this year by the looks of things and that meant he would be facing the horrors of war soon. He had failed his village, failed his son, and failed his teammates. All this would happen because he could not stomach the thought of leaving comrades behind and for what? To give them a few more years spent fighting a hellish war between nations once again? Was it all for nothing?

Sakumo didn't know, but he did know that he had made a call. He had decided to save his teammates, he had not the stomach to make the tough choice and now he would have to suffer the consequences. The Sandaime docked his pay and suspended him from active duty until further notice. He was put on probation with a black mark on his record and he was no longer eligible to become a jounin instructor. It had been his dream to have his own cute little genin team and he had some fantasies about persuading the Hokage to allow his son to be on his team.

Dreams that were lost before they had a chance to form leaving only shame and a bitter taste in his mouth. He walked home feeling the weight of his failure weighing him down like a lead blanket, his only thought was to see his little Kakashi and enjoy the little time he had with him before word spread of his disgrace. In Konoha the only thing that traveled faster than the ANBU was the rumors and Sakumo had no doubt that come morning he would be facing a lot of hostility.

It wasn't until Sakumo was making breakfast the next morning for Kakashi that he remembered the pack that had come with the kid he had picked up on the way home. So after he had dropped off Kakashi at the academy he went back home to look through the kid's things for some clues about why a child was out in the middle of nowhere. Sakumo acknowledge that it was mostly because he wanted a distraction as much as that he so freaking curious by nature.

The first things he pulled out were interesting but useless, torn slipper remains, spare clothes, a few storage scrolls, a pretty hair comb, a flute, and some womanly things that were from an older woman (probably her mother). There was a map, a compass, a hairbrush and a hand mirror. Just when Sakumo thought he would have to go through the storage scrolls one by one for anything really interesting he found a hidden pocket along the seam at the bottom of the pack. Inside was a picture that Sakumo stared at dumbly for longer than he would ever admit to anyone.

Why would a random kid have a picture of Jiraiya and what was obviously a whore?

Sakumo almost didn't turn the photo over as a horrible sense of foreboding overtook him. However, curiosity drove him to do it and as he suspected there was a short message on the back written in a very elegant script. It was short, to the point, but it left him with a whole lot of unanswered questions as well as an incoming headache. Eyes wide Sakumo just sat staring at the message incomprehensively as he tried to fathom how horrible/lucky he must have been to have seen the girl on his way back from that mission.

_Jiraiya-_

_You probably don't remember me as I am but one of many. However, we shared a secret that you were unaware of that I have tried to protect but now it falls to you. Protect our daughter, Natsumi. _

_-Aiko_

Slowly, as if in a daze he carefully placed all the things he had pulled out back into the pack and set it in the corner. He still had the photo clasped firmly in his hand as he walked towards the door before he shook himself and put it in his kunai pouch. He had to see the Sandaime, they needed to get a message to Jiraiya and they needed to see the girl. This probably wasn't so big in the scheme of things with war on the horizon but somehow it seemed very important still.

Jiraiya was his friend, they had gone to the academy together, and they had fought in the first and second war together. Jiraiya had been there beside him to bury his first wife, when he had married his second, when his son had been born and now Sakumo had some earth shattering news for his dear friend. The Sandaime was Jiraiya's sensei he would understand why he this was important enough to call Jiraiya in because the Sandaime was also a father.

He waited for three hours before the Sandaime called him into his office and then somehow he couldn't find the words to tell him the news. So Sakumo settled with, "Do you remember that child I found on the return trip, the one red tagged in the hospital?" he asked uselessly. Hiruzen nodded his head slowly, "Yes, I do remember that from the debriefing. Why? Has new information been obtained in regards to the child?" he asked. Sakumo nodded and finding himself speechless once more simply handed Hiruzen the photograph and said, "I found this in her pack."

Hiruzen looked at it curiously and just as he had turned it over to read the message on the back of it. Then he got pale and silent. His shoulders tensed and Sakumo wondered what was going through his mind. Then Hiruzen looked up with a very suspicious glint in his eye and Sakumo almost felt bad for Jiraiya.

That look did not bode well. 

**~Natsumi~**

"**Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things."**

― **Arthur Schopenhauer**

I was dreaming; I knew I was because I was me again. I mean I was the me was before all this craziness happened and I got shoved into a life that I never thought was possible. I was walking through our house, and looking for him. I called out and only my voice echoing back at me answered. It was empty, I knew it was, but I kept looking. I wanted to see him again, touch him, hold him, kiss him, tell him how much he meant to me before it was too late.

When I found him I was surprised and I wasn't so sure why. There he was curled up in our bed but he was different than when I had seen him last. I sat on the bed, trying to talk to him, to ask him what was wrong but he couldn't hear me. When I tried to touch him my hand fell through him like I was trying to catch smoke. He looked so…sad. He obviously hadn't shaved or cut his hair in a while. He was thinner than I remembered and there was this sort of broken sadness in his eyes.

It broke my heart.

This wasn't the smiling, joking, cocky, charismatic man I had left behind and it scared me to death. I shouted at him, telling him to stop moping about, to smile, to shave, to get dressed and get out into the sunshine. He loved being outside, the man had been a terror to my sleeping habits always pulling me out of bed at god awful early hours of the morning. He hated lazing about it gave him heart burn. So why wasn't he moving?

When I couldn't stand to look at him anymore I looked around our room hoping for something to distract me from me futile attempts to talk to him. That's when I noticed that all our pictures of us together were upside down, that my side of the closet was in disarray half packed away in boxes but done erratically. My shoe collection was stuffed in a massive pile in the corner and my jewelry box was peeking out from the bottom of one of the boxes.

For the first time I wondered if I was really dreaming and I crawled into our bed and laid down facing him. I studied his face as he blankly stared through me and wondered was this what I had left behind? The guilt was crushing, I didn't want to see him this way and I wanted him to be happy not in this very obvious pain. For a long time I laid there staring at him, wondering for not the first time how I had died. Then as if he sensed me there he reached out his hand and it passed through me as if I were a ghost falling heavily onto the bed.

I crawled closer, I looked at his face and for the first time in a long while I broke down crying as I tried futilely to touch him. There was no worse a torture in this world then to be right in front of the one you loved most, watching them in pain, hurting, and being able to do absolutely nothing about it.

"I'm sorry baby, I'm so sorry," I sobbed, "I'm sorry I left you alone."

I cried until I had no more tears to cry and laid there exhausted. It didn't make sense, what horrible nightmare was this? If I was dreaming I wish I would wake up so I didn't have to face this, as cowardly as that was. Then I saw one of his friends walk softly into the room and sit on the bed. For a while the man said nothing just sitting there and then, "I know you're hurting man but you can't keep doing this to yourself. She wouldn't have wanted you to do this either."

He reared up and snarled frightening his friend and me. "What would you know?! Huh? I knew her best, we told each other everything, she was the love of my life, how could you possibly know what she wanted?" he snarled.

His friend blinked before holding his hands up in surrender, "You're right, how could I know? What I do know is that he you don't do something soon man; you'll drop off the deep end and go somewhere there is no getting back from. You need to grieve and then you need to let her go." His friend said.

I nodded along with him, reaching out to touch him only to realize it was of no use and dropped my hand. My love looked so broken in that moment, "You don't get it do you? I woke up with her cold and dead in my arms? I never got the chance to say good bye, one day she was here and the next she was gone. What the fuck?! How does that happen? HUH? I should have noticed something was wrong! I should have been able to save her!" He shouted gripping his hair.

His friend looked sad as he gently placed a hand on my love's shoulder, "Dude, she had a blood clot that traveled sneakily up to her brain and she died peacefully in her sleep. You are not a god, how could you have known? She showed no symptoms, she didn't know, you couldn't have known, there was nothing you could have done differently," he said sadly.

I nodded in agreement and pressed my head lightly into my love's back in between his shoulder blades like I used to I nearly jumped back when I felt him tense. He had felt that. So I kept my face in between his shoulder blades and willed him to feel me. I ran a hand down his back getting the barest resistance and then I kissed the back of his neck. I couldn't say goodbye in words, he probably wouldn't here me anyways but I whispered into his ear, "I love you."

Then I was falling, into a deep dark well of unconsciousness and my love faded from my arms like I had never been there. I didn't know if it was some dream conjured up from desperate need to know how he was or brought on from my hallucination of him when I needed him to encourage me. I didn't know. The only thing I had was a small little flutter of hope that somehow, someway, I had reached across the divide and found him if only for a moment.

I wished him a long full life, I wanted him to let me go and I wanted him to meet someone who could heal his heart. I wanted him to have a bunch of babies, I wanted him to grow old and after a long peaceful life full of adventures I wanted him to slip away in the night. I wanted to meet him again one day. If this experience had taught me anything was that anything was possible. Maybe one day we would see each other again and I would be able to tell him all the amazing things I had seen of this world.

**~Jiraiya~**

"**Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go it's pretty damn good."****  
****―****Woody Allen**

The woman giggled as his hands ghosted over her thighs and he leaned in expertly brushing against her chest as he did. "So what do you have for me Nana-chan?" Jiraiya asked voice husky. The woman blushed and then smirked hand sliding seductively down his front, "Ah-ah lover, you know the rules." She said lips grazing his ear. He smirked lewdly and she felt a heavy pouch slide indecently into her bra hands grazing flesh intentionally.

She smiled slyly and pressed her body even more indecently against Jiraiya. "I heard from a very, ah, aggressive Iwa nin that the village is on the move. They're increasing their ranks with children, the orphanages from the neighboring villages are being raided, and it looks like they are getting ready for something big." She whispered it against his mouth, lips and tongue just barely brushing against his lips.

Jiraiya's eyes were steely for a moment before the expression was gone and he grinned cheekily at her holding out an additionally pouch. Nana giggled, "Gonna keep me company tonight then sweetheart?" she said grabbing the pouch. Everyone that had been discretely watching them, ill intently or otherwise lost interest in spying on them. Jiraiya was a pervert, this was a whorehouse, and Nana was a very popular pick. Nothing suspicious there. They completely overlooked that the whorehouse bordered Iwa and the fire country thus having a 'diverse' clientele.

As Nana brought him up to the rooms they would be using very vigorously tonight Jiraiya silently contemplated what he had learned. Another war between nations was brewing, Iwa was on the move, as well as Kiri, and his contacts in Kumo were being suspiciously silent. This did not bode well, the nations were primed, and all it would take is one incident then it would all go to hell. He was so tired of war. Jiraiya pushed it from his mind as Nana began stripping in front of him making him smirk.

He might not have ever gotten the girl of his dreams or found love, but this was enough for him for now. Jiraiya was content was his life, meaningless sex was always nice, traveling was awesome, he was freer than he had ever been in his life and had nothing beside his village depending on him. His life was simple, and he was content with it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6- Waking up**

"**It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."****  
****―****Chuck Palahniuk**

**~Natsumi~**

I woke up to a very stiff body and lying in a relatively hard bed. Needless to say I freaked out a little bit. The last thing I remembered was passing out on the bank of a river and now I had no clue where I was or who had brought me there. I could have been picked up by anyone, Ame, Iwa, maybe Konoha if I was lucky but I had no way of knowing. The room I was in had no windows, only white walls and I was alone strapped down to a bed.

My clothes were gone, my pack was nowhere to be seen, I was possibly in enemy hands and I had no clue how to go about escaping. Shit. This sucked. At least they had seen to my injuries, whoever they were, and my face didn't hurt so much anymore neither did my feet. I tried to calm down and think things thru rationally…really I did. However, it's hard to do that when you are so off balanced and injured. They hadn't strapped me down so tightly that I couldn't put my hands together so I strained against my bonds so I could make hand signs.

I think they must have underestimated me since I was so young and injured since my chakra wasn't bound. I quick Kawarimi with my blankets and I was out of my straps. This did little for me besides giving me some freedom of movement and allowing me to try to contemplate my options. I sat up slow, my body was stiff and my muscles seized with every move I made. I had never felt this before, that all over body ache that made you literally not want to move even a finger.

The closest I had ever been to this was when I overdid it with an exercise routine during one of my "get thinner" kicks during my past life. That paled in comparison to what I was feeling right now. Once I managed to sit up I groaned and allowed myself a moment to recover. I needed a distraction so I looked over myself to see what else they could have done. My legs were wrapped in tight bandages all the way up to my knees; my hands were the same up to my elbows and feeling my face I realized my face was wrapped as well. I probably looked like a freaking mummy and with my hair sticking up in every which way out of my bandages certainly added to the horror movie affect I think.

It took me a good five minutes to work up the courage to step/fall off of the stiff bed and onto the floor. My feet screamed at me as soon as they hit the ground and I very nearly screamed from the sudden searing pain. Instead I managed to hold that scream in so it came out as a strangled half growl half groan thing that sounded like a wounded animal. Yeah, it was not my proudest moment. I looked around the room again looking for some sign as to where I had ended up.

I don't know what I was thinking, like getting up from the bed would give me a new perspective on this place and somehow give me the answers I needed. Right, I must have hit my head when I had fallen in that river because I was definitely not thinking clearly. Then again, maybe I had been drugged, and that was entirely possible considering I was picked up by unknown entities and brought to this seemingly blank location. I wondered what they had been thinking bringing me here?

Did they see the resemblance between Jiraiya and I? Not that it would be obvious when they would have found me because I had been covered in caked in mud…most likely. That reminded me, I didn't know how I felt about some stranger bathing me since I was cleaner now and I certainly hadn't done it. The thought kind of creeped me out and at the same time I was so grateful since I felt so much more human now that I didn't have a good two inches of mud caked on me.

Somehow I had lost track of myself and I forced myself to focus. It was surprisingly harder than I had anticipated, yeah, they had definitely drugged me. I hobbled around the room looking at everything, not that there was much to see, and tried to work out how to get out. I tested the door of course but I wasn't so lucky as to have it unlocked. Great. After a while I realized I couldn't make myself walk around anymore and trying to climb back in the bed seemed to me like a bad idea. So I naturally just laid myself down beside it with some difficulty since my body had gone into full protest mode and refused to cooperate anymore.

I sort of ended up falling more than laying down but the end result was all the same. It was sort of funny that this action ended up giving me my one and only clue. A big one at that. There on the underside of my stiff bed was a tiny leaf symbol etched into the metal frame. At least I knew where I was now, I had made it, well someone had brought me here but still I felt a sense of accomplishment. I did everything I could to make it as far as I could to Konoha, and a little assist in the end didn't take that away from me. I counted myself lucky I hadn't died out there or worse. As I fell asleep I wondered if my mom had made it here yet, I couldn't really remember how long I had traveled on my own and I didn't know how long I had been out. Maybe she was here already.

**~Sakumo~ **

"**Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it."****  
****―****Salvador Dalí**

Sakumo had been called into the Hokage's office a lot over his career, and was intimately familiar with all the shortcuts to getting there. So when he had been summoned just minutes ago about the girl he managed to make it to the tower in record time. When he got there Hiruzen and Orochimaru were waiting for him. Sakumo wasn't very surprised to see him there, Orochimaru was the only remaining Sanin still currently residing in Konoha and it made sense that Hiruzen would contact him.

"Good, now that your both here we can begin," Hiruzen said as he picked up a folder on his desk. "As you are aware Sakumo picked up the girl, Natsumi, and five days ago he discovered this picture in her belongings." He held up the photo taking it out from the folder and passing it to Orochimaru who hadn't seen it yet and sighed deeply when he did. "The message on the back of the picture suggested that Jiraiya has a daughter that he was unaware of and that is in need of Konoha's protection." He continued.

"Since then I have sent out a discrete team of anbu on a strict information gathering mission to either verify or dismiss these claims. They managed to track down the woman in the photograph to a small border town in a whore house. Unfortunately, by the time the team had managed to track her last known location they had missed her as she has seemingly run off with the cook. We only managed to get the barest description of the cook, a man named Kenshin, and only very sparse information about the woman herself." Hiruzen said as he passed Sakumo some of the reports while giving Orochimaru the other.

"No one in the town proper was aware that Aiko had a child, no one had any clue she even existed until there was an incident a few weeks back involving a client who hadn't wanted to pay for Aiko wares. It seems that this man, they weren't able to pin an accurate name or description, was using genjutsu to trick Aiko into giving him her…wares…for free. However he was unaware of the protocols of this particular whorehouse that has a separate suite of rooms for such proposes and that clients were never taken to the girls sleeping area." Hiruzen said giving Orochimaru a layout map that the anbu had draw of the whorehouse.

"He led Aiko back to her rooms and found an unfortunate surprise. Apparently Aiko had been hiding Natsumi in her rooms since her birth; the girl has never been seen by anyone in the town before this incident. It looks like Natsumi was effectively held prisoner in those rooms her entire life and had never stepped outside them until recently." He said and Sakumo watched Orochimaru's hand clench in anger. "No one is entirely sure what happened when this man first entered Aiko's rooms but one thing is generally agreed on. It appears Natsumi recognized her mother was being control and attacked this man."

"The man was eventually subdued but Natsumi had sustained injuries from this incident. It appears that Aiko had paid off some shinobi to put up seals in her room to trap sound from leaving and is how she managed to keep Natsumi hidden for so long. It appears that the man had left the door open alerting everyone to the incident and drawing a large crowd to Aiko's room. That was when Natsumi was exposed and the house mother stated publicly that she intended to sell Natsumi to a Geisha house a few towns over." Hiruzen said sadly as Sakumo felt overwhelming sadness for the woman.

"No one is entirely sure how she managed it but Aiko somehow smuggled out Natsumi that night and then disappeared herself a week later. We don't know how Natsumi ended up where you found her Sakumo, but the circumstances surrounding it are clear. The Anbu also managed to get various confirmations from numerous people in the town that Jiraiya did pass through there a few years back and has been seen there a few times before that." Hiruzen said as he closed the folder.

"So by all appearances it would seem that this Natsumi is truly Jiraiya's daughter?" Orochimaru said seriously. "It would appear so, though I would like for more confirmation that circumstance and testimony from unreliable sources. I know you were developing a technique to look into genetic codes and tracking. Would it be possible for you to test this girls against Jiraiya?" Hiruzen asked. Orochimaru nodded looking at the picture once more, "I should be able to develop something along those lines, give me three day."

"Done," Hiruzen said before he turned his gaze to Sakumo. "Now I know we all want to believe that this is just a funny incident that we will be able to ream Jiraiya about as soon as he gets here. However, with tensions as they are and with a looming war on our hands we cannot dismiss the possibility of a sleep agent. It is just all too convenient, there isn't enough known about this Natsumi to place our faith in. She will need to be vetted and watched. Since you are currently suspended from missions I cannot pay you to watch over her Sakumo but if you would watch over her and keep an eye out for danger signs I would greatly appreciate it." Hiruzen said.

Sakumo nodded, "Of course Hokage-sama, Kakashi is around her same age perhaps it will get her to open up more with another child around." Orochimaru hummed his agreement, "I would like to visit her as soon as she is awake, I more than most know what to look for in case her appearance is manufactured in some way. Plus, I have experience with sleeper agents and seals thanks to Jiraiya I should be able to spot it in her behavior if she has anything like that about her." He said seriously.

Sakumo nodded in agreement though he would have liked to have been the first one to see the little girl. It was still odd trying to get his mind wrapped around _Jiraiya_ being a father because the man was so far from the fathering type. Jiraiya was a wild man, easily distracted by a beautiful woman and a very hard man to tie down. After the second shinobi war Jiraiya had been a ghost in the wind, growing an intelligence gathering network and 'researching' for his new series of adult books.

The man who was the biggest womanizer Sakumo had ever known, was now a father to a little girl, and they said fate didn't have a sense of humor? Sakumo wanted to laugh, picturing Jiraiya's reaction if the child was his daughter was priceless. Sakumo turned his eyes to Orochimaru; it was lucky that he had not gone the way of his teammates and sought a life outside of Konoha's walls. Orochimaru was most well known for his ninjutsu obsession but those who knew him knew of his other talents.

After all ones does not go through years of being on a team with a master medic and a seal master without picking some things up. Orochimaru was not the master of the arts like his teammates but he had a considerable talent in them. "The medic tell me that Natsumi woke for some time yesterday and they expect she'll be conscious again soon. If you wish, you can head to the hospital with Sakumo now. Sakumo can see about the sort of care the girl will need in the coming days as you await for her to regain consciousness." Hiruzen said as he began to make his way back behind his mountain of paperwork with a sigh. Sakumo nodded and Orochimaru tilted his head in agreement before they vanished from the office all together.

**~Orochimaru~**

"**You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist."****  
****―****Friedrich Nietzsche**

The folder in his hand was a heavy weight and still Orochimaru felt a strange sense of denial. The idea of one of his teammates having a _child_, much less that teammate being Jiraiya of all people had his head spinning. A part of him had thought that none of them would ever have children, not since Dan had died and left Tsunade a shattered mess. Jiraiya was too lost himself to be a father, Tsunade was too heartbroken to be a mother and Orochimaru hadn't given the issue much thought since he had begun his research into Kekkai genkai.

Now that the issue was unavoidable to contemplate Orochimaru found himself thinking the strangest of thoughts. About children and what he would do if he was in Jiraiya's shoes right now. The thought of family, a child, it squeezed his heart painfully as he remembered the parents who he had lost and the little brother Tsunade had lost. Family was dangerous, especially a small child unable to defend itself from the world around it…so vulnerable…so easily taken away.

It was a horror he couldn't bring himself to contemplate. Since he had seen the devastation that Tsunade was going through from the loss of Dan he had been pulling back from forming any sort of romantic attachments. It couldn't hurt him if he didn't allow himself to feel like that towards anyone. However, it also took away the possibility of having children, of having family again, something he so missed the warmth of since his parent's passed. Family had been the most important thing in the world to him once, before he had lost them, and even though his teammates were as close to family as he had now…they were gone.

Tsunade had abandoned him to wallow inside her pain and left to forget the place Dan had sacrificed himself to save. Jiraiya, in love with Tsunade and knowing she could never care for him that way had lost himself to the meaningless comforts of cheap company. Both he had considered family, and yet both had left him here alone. His parents wouldn't have done that to him, had they been alive, and perhaps it was the blood that tied them so closely together. Maybe it was blood that bound them to him even from beyond the grave.

It brought the issue back at hand, children, could he afford to risk it? He knew having a child meant he would have to risk feeling that all consuming pain that he had felt for his parents' death again should the worst happen. Orochimaru knew that opening himself up to be hurt that way again was dangerous for him. He already knew how close he was to the edge as it stood now, but if he did have a child it could push him past that edge. It could make him fall from the pain…or it could save him from this all consuming loneliness.

Not that it mattered much, having a child was an act for two people and the thought of having a child with any of his other female acquaintances was unappealing. He would not settle for normal, he wanted the best if he was to walk down that path and the best meant a lot to him. She would have to be beautiful, of course, but strong. She would have to be strong enough to not only defend herself but their child as well. A woman strong enough to not fall in battle and leave him alone. There was nothing more Orochimaru hated more than this never ending loneliness that had consumed his life since his parents' death.

Orochimaru pushed the matter from his mind as the hospital came into view. He had other things to concentrate on than a future child bearer and children. There was a child within these walls that claimed to be the blood of his fellow orphan teammate and Orochimaru knew how important verifying that she was as she appeared to be would be to Jiraiya. If the child was his teammate's daughter then Orochimaru would see to it that she was protected and if she was some sleeper agent sent to shatter Jiraiya. Well, he would ensure that the child met with a swift end before she had any chance to do any damage. It would be a mercy to her as well as Jiraiya that she die quickly if he found her to be just some spy. Otherwise she would face a long torturous interrogation and Jiraiya would have to face grief from family being taken from him once more.

**A.N.: and there we are! Dun Dun Dun lol the plot is thickening! Let me know what you think! I'm trying not to fall into the clichés that come from self inserts. Lol Tell me how I'm doing? I brought Orochimaru in because I believe he was still in Konoha during most of the third shinobi war. At least as far as I can tell, since Anko was his student and she is roughly the same age as Kakashi. Plus, Orochimaru had to have gotten those sixty babies from somewhere and there are a lot of orphans made during war so I figured this for my Orochimaru defect timeline as far as canon goes: **

**Anko graduates age 10**

**Becomes Orochimaru's apprentice**

**Orochimaru begins experiments during the Third War**

**He is discovered when Anko is 11/12 and flees the village with her then gives her a curse mark. She decides to not abandon Konoha so he abandons her. **

**Anko is 12 when the Kyuubi hits and Orochimaru joins Akatsuki**

**Now for my timeline and how it compares to canon so far****: **

**Anko is four**

**Kakashi is six-already graduated**

**Natsumi is five**

**Since it seems that Orochimaru was a pretty decent if pragmatic guy before he joined the dark side (ie Root) I am willing to bet he has yet to turn down that path at the start of the third war. **

**So as it stands Orochimaru is still the man that cried with Tsunade about Dan's death, visits his parents graves every day, is obsessed with being stronger and knowing all the ninjutsu ever made. He has darkness in him, there is no doubt about that, but he is also redeemable at this point since he has yet to fully explore the horrors of his experiments. My thought on this is that Orochimaru hadn't started out the evil man the canon shows him as, he was a decent guy once, and his fall from grace was a long one. So while his part might seem to be a little OOC in this chapter it is how I imagine him being before he let himself become the monster we know him as. After all there must be a reason it took all his friends and teacher so long to give up on redeeming him. There must have been a time when he showed them someone different. Anyways enough of that rant, what do you guys think? Could Orochimaru be redeemed or will he be doomed to his canon fate? **


End file.
